Recipe: Beef Stroganoff

     Tonight is a real source of anxiety for me. The reason: Beef Stroganoff. I have always loved beef stroganoff, it's a classic. But someone in this family has never liked it, I'm not going to name any names, *cough* Graham! I've made it 2 times for him. The first time I will agree it wasn't very good because I didn't get to use my normal ingredients. But the second time it was good. Graham Cracker says that it is bland and is just mushy. So tonight I am going to use Martha Stewart's recipe for beef stroganoff and if he doesn't like it then, I'm going to throw in the towel. 
   Here is the recipe that I am going to use. 

Ingredients

• 2 pounds beef chuck, trimmed of excess fat and cut into thin slices (about 1/2 inch thick and 3 inches long)
• 1 large onion, chopped (about 2 cups)
• 1 pound white mushrooms, trimmed and halved (or quartered, if large)
• Coarse salt and ground pepper
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1/2 cup reduced-fat sour cream
• 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
• Cooked thin egg noodles, for serving
• Chopped fresh dill, for garnish (optional)

Directions

1. In a 5- to 6-quart slow cooker, toss beef, onion, and mushrooms with 1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt and teaspoon pepper. Cover, and cook on low until meat is tender, about 8 hours (or on high for 6 hours).
2. In a 2-cup glass measuring cup, whisk cornstarch with 2 tablespoons water. Ladle 1 cup cooking liquid into measuring cup; whisk to combine. Pour into a small saucepan, and bring to a boil; cook until thickened, about 1 minute. With slow cooker turned off, stir in cornstarch mixture, then sour cream and mustard. Serve beef over noodles; sprinkle with dill, if desired.

As you know I already made the roast last night. So I am just going to make the sauce, add more mushrooms and cook the egg noodles. I hope this goes well.

Later: I forgot that I needed beef broth for this recipe so I had to thaw out some of the beef broth cubes that I made. They were supper easy to thaw out in a saucepan. In a seperate pan, I suated more mushrooms and heated up the left over roast. Then after I added the broth with the cornstarch to thicken it, I shut off the heat and added the sour cream and Dijon mustard.  When I started making it, I was really nervous. I had no idea if Graham would like it or not. And guess what? HE DID!!! He said it had a lot more flavor than the beef stroganoff that I had made before and it had a better texture too. He could actually pick out the mustard and said it was very good. I was going to include a picture of it but I forgot to take one. It didn't really look very appealing in the pan because you couldn't see the texture. But I don't care because Graham Cracker liked it! He even just said that I could make it again! Bazinga!!!